I get up at 6 and get in the David’s car at 6:20. I went with David Marquardt, Drew Holton, Sam and Zack Bittinger, Drew’s father and David’s mother. It was a pretty tight fit. We stop at burger king about half way there and I think I‘m the only one who doesn‘t get cini-minis. We get there around 9:30, and I have to borrow some cards. I get 3 reporters and a blaziken from Fulop, 1 ray and 3 dragon’s torchics from Drew, and 1 torchic from Sam. Here is the decklist:

This version has a high level of consistency. I feel that consistency is more important than teching a certain card for certain matches. Drew ran blaz/tails, David ran blaz/ray, Sam ran Fulop’s kingdraEX/hariyama deck, and Zack ran sceptile. There were 35 people total. About 10 10-, 10 11-14, and 15 15+. Here are the rounds; I’m bad with names, so I have forgotten some.

Round 1- vs. Sean (can’t remember last name) w/ illegal deck
He is playing beat-up, sleeveless cards. He sets out 4 basics: a genesis totodile and 3 team rocket magnemites. I call the judge and get a game win. Most of his deck was illegal. 1-0

Round 2- vs. Joel Dixon w/ ampharos
I go 2nd, a trend that would continue until the finals. He literally got every flip in this game. He starts out getting 2 heads on a dual ball to get 2 marreeps. I get an ok, but not great, start. Turn 2 he has a delcatty and 1of each amp on the bench. Turn 3 he switches and kills my dunsparce with amp EX. All this time he is continuing to reporter, juggler, and delcatty. I send up sacrificial 50HP basics 2 more, which he gets heads to kill them all. I eventual get a ray EX up and kill him. He sends out a wobbafet and crystal shards to kill my ray. I send blaz up and beat down, then he retreats and gets another amp ex after a turn. He flips a tails with its attack, if he flips heads, I retreat and kill it with ray, but no. I can oracle for a switch next turn to kill the amp if he flips another tails, but he flips a heads to pick up his last prize. I am ****** that I lost on complete flips. 1-1

Round 3 vs. some lady (forgot name) w/ dustox/wobbafet
I get a slow start, but think that I have it won since dustox is weak to fire. It comes out, but its weak to psychic. I eventually kill her through the barrage of healing that she uses. I end the game with 4 blazikens out. 2-1

Now its time for the lunch break. I dislike lunch breaks anyways and this one lasts over an hour. During the time I play football w/ Drew, David, and Zack, and I play some poker with Drew and Ray.

Round 4 vs. some other lady (forgot name again) w/ BAR
I think that she is playing a bad version of the deck, because her first 3 energy attachments are lightnings on a ray EX. She gets a blaz out with no fire in the discard and I just kill her with blaz. 3-1

Round 5 vs. James Davis w/ Muk EX/ espeon
This is a very close game. He gets a 2nd turn muk EX and nearly gets an early win as he kills a combuskan and gets 60 damage on a ray before I kill it. I then stabilize with a dunsparce to get blaziken and delcatty out. He gets a 2nd muk EX and I kill it with my ray to have that killed by an espeon, which I kill in a few turns. I eventually pick up my last prize. 4-1

Round 6 vs. Chris Fulop w/ blaz/tails/ray
I figure out that the top 7 people only have to draw to get in. Ironically, we are the only people that actually do draw in. 4-1-1

After waiting 30 minutes for the t8 to be announced, I am in 6th place, to be playing Jim Ferrell. Then there is a software problem and I wait, half falling asleep, for another 1.5 hours. The problem was that someone had 6 wins and 6 losses. At least everyone got a free pack for being patient.

Top 8 vs. Jim Ferrell w/ blaz/ray
We both get pretty good setups. I get a blaz up that kills his dunsparce, which is killed by his ray, then I get another blaz up and start beating. He can’t seem to find a 2nd blaziken and stalls for a bit. He kills my blaz w/ ray and I kill his ray with my catty. Prizes are 4-2 in favor of me and that disables his 2nd ray, which would be killed by my ray. I pile up the bench damage on him and get a warp point for the win.

Top 4 vs. little kid (think his last name was Dilisle, not sure) w/ kingdra/hariyama
This kid was undefeated during swiss. We both get dunsparce starts and he shamans to mess up my god hand. He paralyzes mine 3 turns in a row and gets a turn 3 kingdra EX. I might have lost this to a good player, as I had no setup, but he just attacks with dunsparce. I get blaziken up to kill it, he gets up a horsea which reverse thrusts a couple times, with me killing 50 HP basics, then he reverse thrusts and sends out kingdra EX, which I just kill with my ray EX, which has been waiting for a few turns. I just kill everything else with blaziken.

Finals vs. James Davis w/ Muk Ex/espeon.
For the first time in the day, I actually go first. He really gets no setup at all and I kill his 50 HP pokes with a blaziken.

So I won the tourney. I got a box, medal, and the VIP package. Drew finished 4-2, David finished 3-3, but got screwed out of a win because he signed the match sheet wrong or something. Sam and Zack were both 2-4 I think. Chris and Jim were 5-8, and ray was 3-3.

The car ride home is pretty fun, we do a draft with my dragons packs that I get a 6-4-2 salamence line in. We never play though, as its too dark and that would be difficult with the seating arrangement. We stop at McDonald’s and I get $5 worth of stuff off of the dollar menu. The whole trip was pretty fun. I’ll also be at the Parma CC as York is only 5 minutes from me.

Props:
To me for winning
To everyone that let me borrow cards
To David’s mother for driving and Drew’s father for coming also
To the TO’s and judges

Slops:
To Nintendo’s terrible software
To my terrible flip luck
To only going first once the whole day